Health motives and health behaviour self-regulation in older adults Benjamin Schu ¨z • Susanne Wurm • Lisa M. Warner • Julia K. Wolff • Ralf Schwarzer Received: July 25, 2012 / Accepted: March 9, 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Health motives are motivational dispositions towards health. They are implicitly inherent in most health behaviour theories, yet rarely studied. We examined the role of health motives in health behaviour self-regulation (physical activity), particularly in the mediation of inten- tion effects on behaviour via planning in an at-risk popu- lation with high need for behaviour change, older adults with multiple illnesses. A longitudinal study with two measurement points over 6 months was conducted, assessing 309 community-dwelling adults with multiple illnesses aged 65 and older. Health motives were assessed by contrasting health ratings with all other domains on the Personal Life Investment Schedule. Data were analysed in a moderated mediation framework using path analyses. Health Motives moderated the degree to which intentions predicted behaviour via planning (intention*health motives b = .18, p \ .05). Intentions are better translated into planning and behaviour if furnished with health motives. For older adults, this suggests that ‘‘health’’ in health behaviour change motivation merits more investigation, for example by stressing functional implications. Keywords Health behaviour theories Á Health motives Á Health motivation Á Older adults Á Physical activity Á Multimorbidity Á Moderated mediation Introduction In many theories that have been used to predict health behaviour such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) or Protection Motivation Theory (Maddux & Rogers, 1983), behavioural goals or intentions play a cru- cial role as determinants of behaviour and indicators of motivation. However, it has been suggested that motivation is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of behaviour change (Sheeran, 2002). This means that having intentions and being motivated to change behaviour is essential to produce sustaining behaviour change, but alone will not suffice (Heckhausen, 1991). Maintaining unhealthy behaviour despite motivation can indicate deficits in behavioural self-regulation, which can be due to depletion of resources, missing of good opportunities or memory lapses regarding the original intentions (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994). Concrete action plans or implementation intentions have been found to effectively facilitate the translation of motivation into behaviour, as they furnish goal intentions with concrete pathways to action (Gollwitzer, 1999). In this article, we will examine if higher-order health motives (Heckhausen, 1991) can determine whether intentions are translated into action plans, thus examining the importance of individual motives underlying behavioural intentions. We examine this proposed moderating effect of health motives on the translation of intentions into action plans in older adults, who have been found to hold health motives by prioritising health over other life domains (Schindler, B. Schu ¨z (&) School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 30, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia e-mail: benjamin.schuez@utas.edu.au B. Schu ¨z Á S. Wurm Á L. M. Warner Á J. K. Wolff German Centre of Gerontology, Berlin, Germany L. M. Warner Á R. Schwarzer Health Psychology, Freie Universita ¨t Berlin, Berlin, Germany R. Schwarzer University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw, Poland 123 J Behav Med DOI 10.1007/s10865-013-9504-y